


My Darling Stranger

by cethmistmyk



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, I was going to change the ending, Retelling, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and I'm not great a long fics, but I realized I liked it the way it was, the royal line is matriarchal, the view from inside the crystal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 21:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17588540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cethmistmyk/pseuds/cethmistmyk
Summary: Soulmarks are a sign of adulthood.  A way to find your way in the world.  But when a stranger is your soulmate, are they really a stranger?





	My Darling Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Self Beta'ed
> 
> I don't own anything except the clothes on my back. 
> 
>  
> 
> I love the movie Atlantis, and when I was watching it recently I wondered why I'd never really seen any fanfiction for it. And the fanfiction here is pretty basic, and nothing was really what I wanted. So I decided to write something, and thought how interesting it would be to explore soulmates when you're born nearly 10000 years apart. 
> 
> A few notes about soulmates: most of this should be evident in the fic, but the color of the mark is important, and when you meet your soulmate, your colors bleed together a little.
> 
> Atlantean is shown to be the base language to a lot of languages, so Kida doesn't need to translate anything, she understands everything. Milo had to learn these languages so they will never flow as smoothly as they could, so if something isn't in English, it's not as easy to understand.

My Darling Stranger

Milo Thatch had a fairly normal childhood he thought. His grandfather was more of his father figure, but that wasn’t uncommon. People died every day, and surely some of them would have children. 

He went to school and went on adventures with his grandfather. Thaddeus Thatch. They hunted for hidden treasure, and signs of ancient civilizations. Arrowheads and shards of pottery were put in places of honor, displayed like medals and trophies. 

Milo figured he was doing okay, yeah he didn’t have his parents, and his Grandfather’s soulmate had died last year, but all in all life was good. 

Today was his 13th birthday, and he woke up excited, and a little nervous. Today was the day he was getting his soul mark! He could barely eat his breakfast he was so excited!

“You know Milo,” his grandfather said, looking at him fondly, “you weren't born until night fell, you have a while to wait.”

“I know grandfather!” Milo almost whined, “but it could come early?” 

“You will be the first person in all of history to get their soul mark at a different time than their birth?” Grandfather said, trying not to smirk.

“Well, no,” Milo said, realizing how unlikely it was that it would come early, he deflated, “what am I supposed to do? It’s Hours until then!”

Grandfather smiled, “I could tell you about my soul mark,” he said, already reaching for his sleeve cuff. 

“Yes please!” Milo jumped up off the seat, wanting to look at those words. 

_Þú! Hvað ert þú að gera þarna?_

The words appeared faded, a dull red color that stood out from the pale skin, yet seemed to shimmer and want to fade beneath the surface. 

“What does it mean?” Milo asked, looking up into the brown eyes of his grandfather. 

“You! What are you doing there?” Grandfather smiled, remembering the memory. 

“It was the first time I’d been to Iceland, I was wandering around, not really paying attention, and this woman came storming out of a house, and yelled that, apparently I was getting too close to her herb garden.” Grandfather’s eyes were distant. “I responded, ‘Sorry my lady, I wasn’t watching where I was going,’ and the rest is history.”

Milo knew that something happened right after a soulmates meet, but no one would tell him, it was very frustrating. It wasn’t even that no one would tell him, it was that all anyone would say was something like ‘the rest is history’ or ‘and you know what happens next’. Of course he didn’t know! He didn’t even have a soul mark! 

“But enough, go and play, evening will be here soon enough.” Grandfather said, pushing Milo out the door. 

By the time evening had fallen, Milo couldn’t sit still, he didn’t know the exact time of his birth, not many people did, but he knew that it was soon, he remembered his mother telling him the first star she saw that night was him. 

By the fourth time he’d gone to the window to see the darkness of the sky, his grandfather had had enough. “Milo, come, sit with me, time will not go faster just because you wish it to.” 

“I know, Grandfather, but why must I wait, all I want to know are my soul words!” 

“It is something we all waited for, and we survived, they did not come faster for our impatience, nor did they not come if we weren’t paying attention.” Grandfather smiled, Milo could tell he was remembering his 13th birthday. 

“I know that!” Milo growled, “but it is worse, knowing the hour of my birth, and not the minute.” 

“Pax,” Grandfather said, smirking at the game they played. 

“That one’s easy, Grandfather! I’ve heard a lot of people use it! It means Peace in latin.” 

“And you could use some peace” Grandfather said without malice, “and patience.” 

Milo began to respond, something about having patience, but before he could get the words out he gasped, and grabbed his right shoulder. 

Hmm, Thaddeus thought to himself, isn’t that interesting, having it elsewhere than his arm. 

“Come, let us see.” He pulled Milo’s hand off his shoulder, and opened his shirt, to reveal bright blue lettering, they almost seemed to shine in the firelight. 

_Neshing-en-tem gebr-in de pen-yoh. Leb es-e-neh dup, duwer-en-top? Lat suldup-e-neh dup?_

Milo traced the words with his fingers, awe and exhilaration in every movement. 

“I’ve never seen such words, Grandfather, can you read them?” 

Thaddeus hummed, “I cannot, they are a language I have never learned.”

Milo nodded to himself, he knew already that somehow. The words seemed like something that was beyond the world. Or maybe that was the glow of their light. 

“I’m going to find out! I’ll become a scholar and learn every language there is!” 

Thaddeus just smiled, Milo would either learn not everything is that easy, or he would triumph. 

\---

“Why do you wish to study ancient linguistics?” the professor asked the young man in front of him.

“They’ve always fascinated me, my grandfather and I played a game where he would say a word and I would try to guess what language it was and what it meant.” Milo, taler and gangly at 18 would never admit it was because his soul mark seemed to be in a language no-one spoke. While it wasn’t wrong to use your soul mark to get a job, or use it to figure out what the future would hold, most people looked down at that. Everyone thought that there was free will, and if you put too much stock in a set of words, you set yourself up for failure. There were whispers of people whose marks had changed after they did something their mark seemed to say. Sometimes it was just the wording, but there was a rumor of a man in North Dakota whose words changed languages. No one would hire you on the basis of your mark, after all meeting your soulmate could happen at any point in your life. Who’s to say it would even happen at the location your mark inferred anyway.

“Well, your test score was one of the best I’ve seen.” the professor looked over his glasses at the smudge of dirt on Milo’s knees. “We shall see if that continues.”

\---

When Milo was 23 he graduated from university, top of his class. Everyone spoke about his drive, and almost supernatural ability to understand a language from just a few sentences. Little did they know he had incentive to learn all he could from a few words.

His soul mark was three sentences. Each no longer than a few words. None of the words repeated themselves, and the grammar was very different from English. He still didn’t know what they meant, or even how to say them, but that didn’t stop him from wishing and hoping.  
\---

Milo was 28 when he first began to doubt. He had been looking for 15 years, and not one hint of the language on his shoulder had ever been found. Sometimes after a long and frustrating day he would trace each letter with his finger, saying the words with a new phonetic pattern, trying to make the speaker real, make his soulmate exist. 

\---

Atlantean was just the next language on his list. It was one of the older languages, something most people didn’t even believe existed. He quickly fell in love with learning all he could about it, every language was this way. 

The excitement of learning something new, and the way that he could contribute to the field, it never ceased to amaze him. 

Before he realized it he was on an adventure, just like the one his grandfather told him about. 

Between trying to keep a multi million dollar expedition from getting lost in the cavern of the earth, and staying alive himself, Milo didn’t even think about his soul mark until it all came crashing down. 

\---

There were people down here! And they did something. He shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. 

Milo couldn’t think. His mind kept getting stuck. There were people down here! 

When they began to flee he didn’t even think. He ran after them. The bright light after being in the darkness for so long was jarring. The majestic plumes of steam and the waterfall with what looked to be a citadel was even more so. He could feel the rest of the crew coming up behind him, but couldn’t take his eyes off the view in front of him. 

The barest whisper of sound made him turn around. 

Those were people!! 

“They’ve gotta be Atlanteans!” Milo didn’t even realize he’d spoken. 

The person in the center spoke. 

“Neshing-en-tem gebr-in de pen-yoh. Leb es-e-neh dup, duwer-en-top? Lat suldup-e-neh dup?” 

It took several seconds, Milo had never thought to say his words with that accent, but then he realized. She could be his soul mate!

\---------

Kida was a child when she got her soul mark. All children got them when they reached the age of first blood. Her father said it was the age children could understand the stories of their past. 

Kida wasn’t sure what made her know more today than yesterday, but knew not to contradict her father. 

She traced the letters, the darkest black, darker than obsidian, darker than the center of her eye. In the right light they seemed to gleam, like they were wet upon her skin. 

_Leb es-e-neh dup, duwer-en-top? Lat suldup-e-neh dup?_

Who are you strangers? Where did you come from? 

Kida thought she might understand why she could be told the stories, they would distract from the implication of her soul mark. She could barely remember the surface, but in the years since it had disappeared, there wasn’t a stranger to be found. 

\---

Years later, a girl got her letters. It was a day of joy, for when a child got their letters they were old enough to join society as an adult. In all the celebration Kida realized the girl couldn’t read the letters. Some of the adults read them to her, but the girl was repeating the words, not reading them. 

Many years later when a boy got his letter, Kida didn’t have the heart to tell him they said something. No one could read them. Kida wept, her people were being washed away. 

\---

Kida laughed as she ran through the cavern, her father had tasked her with protecting them from outsiders. Only one group had ever made it past weeping skull, and they were quickly stopped by the totem pole, unable to get around it. Her group came down like death upon them. Snuffing their lives without thought. You do not take notice of the grass that is trod upon. 

As she ran back to the city, she gave a brief thought, but none of the strangers had spoken her language before they died. 

\---

Kida loved to swim, the peaceful quiet of the water pressing down on her. It was a way for her to escape the pressure of the kingdom. Her father wanted her to be queen, making sure their people were safe and happy. Not every year, but more years than not the teachings of her father weighed her down. So she escaped to the ruins under the water. 

There she found a mural. It had writing on the walls, pictures of a crystal and golems. Symbols for the kings of their past. Soon every time she felt the call of the deep she came to this place. The writing on the wall was beyond her ken, but she knew it was important. 

\---

“Father, maybe we need help,” Kida said, looking out at their city. “No on has been able to read their soul mark in many years.” 

“The soul knows what it wants, even without words on skin,” the king said, his eyes blind to the plight of his people. He remembered his own words. 

_The stars are beautiful tonight._

They’d shone with the darkness of the night sky. But now that his wife and queen was gone, bonded to the crystal, they were overlaid with the dark pulsing red of danger. He closed his eyes against the pain. He could feel her on the edge of his mind, peaceful, content, bonded with the queens of the past. 

He couldn’t remember what he had said back, but he could remember the color of the words. The royal blue of the crystal, a sign that his soulmate was royal, that they would rule together. 

“But father, soon the words on our skin will be nothing more than a symbol of adulthood, we will not remember why they appear,” Kida said, breaking him out of his thoughts. 

“You would have an outsider come to our city? Take our people? Destroy our way of life?” The king asked. “Do not grow soft my daughter.” 

Kida turned away, her father was right, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. 

\---

Kida no longer needed her father to tell her when the Kraken was woken from its slumber. She could feel the anger and need to destroy. 

She gathered 4 of her guard, sure that they wouldn’t need more than that. The last group of invaders was so weak she could have crushed them without help. 

This group was different. They had machines that poured foul smelling smoke into the air. At every turn they found the right path. Almost like they had a guide. She thought of the streets of her city, crumbling beneath time. There was no guide to help them. 

They crept into the camp of the invaders, forewarned is forearmed. Kida found a sack with object in it, something that looked like a bowl. A piece of metal. And a flat something. It looked like a person was flattened and put on a piece of glass. 

The noise of someone getting up made them flee. There were too many people to fight, Kida had to hope they would get stuck somewhere and could be culled there. 

And explosion stopped them. Kida whirled around, wanting to see what had happened. 

There, on the ground, was a man. He had strange objects in front of his eyes, and a strange manner of clothing. 

“Kida, come,” said Jatho, “either kill him or leave.”

Kida opened her mouth to retort, but the stranger opened his eyes. The reflection of their crystals glinting in the glass on his face. He scrambled away from them, but a wound on his shoulder stopped him. He grabbed it, grimacing in pain. Kida lifted her mask, even an intruder and stranger, she was Queen, and would try to ease suffering if she could. She used her crystal to heal him. His skin seemed warmer than it should be, even with the heat of the crystal. As she lifted her hand away, she could see something on the skin. But before she could look at it more closely she heard the sound of his fellow travelers. Not wanting to get caught by them they fled. 

\---

Silly people, how would you stay alive if you didn’t protect your back. She would train them to be better. Not noticing how she thought of the strangers in the future, Kida and her guard cut off their exit. 

“They’ve gotta be Atlanteans!” the man spoke. Kida heard the words these people spoke. But when she stepped forward to address them, she couldn’t help but say the words on her arm, these were the first strangers she had seen in more years than she could count. 

“Drop your weapons. Who are you strangers? Where did you come from?”

The group moved in shock. Kida wondered if they heard her. 

“Who are you strangers? Where did you come from?” she said again, banging her spear on the ground. 

The man stepped forward. 

In halting words, like he wasn’t even sure of what he was saying he said, “Leb es-e-neh dup, duwer-en-top? Lat suldup-e-neh dup?” 

Kida gasped, she took off her mask and stared at this man, he could be her soulmate!

\---------

In that moment, as their eyes touched, each thinking to themselves, ‘this could be my soulmate’ the world expanded. 

It wasn’t anything as exciting as a telepathic connection. The king had had that with his wife. Years spent with a person would give you the ability to predict their thoughts, and the bond between soulmates made it so the guess you had was the right one. When the queen was taken by the crystal it drove the king a little mad. He could feel his wife bonding with the crystal. When the danger had passed, he considered trying to get her released. But could tell, she would never walk on the ground again. 

They didn’t exchange memories, or suddenly be able to speak another language. Thaddeus and Thea when they met already knew a little Icelandic and English. The bond made the frustration of not quite understanding go quiet beneath the peace of having a soulmate. When Thaddeus learned a new word in Icelandic he never had to try as hard to remember it as any other language. Thea always knew what to say, be it in Icelandic or English, she had a word ready. 

There weren’t fireworks going off in the air between them. They didn’t fall together and kiss passionately, all conflict in their past. 

But something changed. It was subtle, this one is important, something in the back of their mind said. It was major, suddenly they knew the other’s body better than their own, from only a glimpse. It was earth shattering, the words on their skins, hidden beneath a thin shirt and beneath layers of feathers forming armor and a costume, brightened. The jet black of the words on Kida’s skin became streaked with the blue of the crystal. The bright blue words on Milos shoulder had trails of ink spooling through them. It was nothing more than an intake of air, and nothing changed at all. 

“Your manner of speech is strange to me,” Kida said, wanting to know how this man said these words like a stranger who grew up among them. 

“Kag wegen-e prid.” Milo said, trying to bend this language to his will. 

Kida barely kept from rolling her eyes, ‘I travel friend?!’ this boy would learn. “You are friendly travelers?” 

Maybe if I try a new language Milo thought, “ita sum amice viator” 

The switch to a new language was shocking, as was the language. “This is the language of the Romans!”

Maybe if she can make the transition to Latin, it’s not a big leap to French. “Parlez vous francais?”

“Yes gentle sir.” They grin at each other, Kida in happiness that her confusion about this stranger is receding, and Milo with pleasure that they will maybe be able to communicate. 

Mole interrupts them. 

Kida punches the man not her soulmate, as much because of the disgusting thing he said, as the fact he isn’t her soulmate. 

Kida realizes after punching the little man, the scholar is her soulmate, she must introduce them to her father! 

The whirlwind in Milos brain goes quiet as he sees the city, rising out of the fog. Before he knows it they’re being shown into what is obviously a throne room. The words go too fast for Milo to fully understand, but he understands enough, the king is not happy. 

Kida doesn’t fully understand why she didn’t tell her father about her soulmate. Maybe she was protecting him, maybe she was protecting her father. 

Milo barely blinks and they are back outside the door. The notes he made are distracting, and he doesn’t even realize he’s been volunteered for something until Rourke claps him on the back. 

Moments later he is waiting on his soulmate (!!), to question her and speak with her. 

Kida decides to question her soulmate (!), she leaves the palace and ambushes him. 

They question each other, and while Milo knew the first thing he should have acknowledged was the fact they are soulmates, he gets distracted and things get away from him. 

It isn’t until they come back from swimming, that Milo can even catch his breath enough to think ‘I have a soulmate’, but then there is guns and shouting, and then there is the crystal, floating in the sky. 

“All will be well, Milo Thatch. Be not afraid, my darling stranger,” Kida feels herself say. 

She can hear the voices of past queens, her mother singing a lullaby. Her grandmother’s voice joins in, with each step the voices of the queens of the past grow louder and more numerous until she is staring directly at the crystal. A voice, both very old and very young says “Welcome my child, join us and all will be well.” A distant part of her realizes, this is the voice of the first queen. The last thought she has as herself is, ‘I hope my stranger will not be alone’. 

Then there is nothing but warmth, the comfort of a mother hugging her daughter, the peace that comes with spending time with family. Distantly, as if from a great distance, and softly, as if spoken like a prayer is a name. “Kida.” There isn’t a Kida in the crystal, not the way the man wants, but the thread in the tapestry that was once Kida vibrates, the Queen mother opens her eyes, and walks forward. 

There is movement, loud noises and shocking vibrations. The Queen mother feels this and vows, she will not let her people die. The thought that could have been Kida is black like ink. There isn’t anything for it to stain, but the ink spreads, a wish is born in the heart of a star, and the hope for the future, for a stranger grows. 

The Queen mother can feel her people, feel her children, they are nervous, but she is more than Queen, she has seen the beginning, she will be here for the end. Her newest daughter wishes fiercely for them to survive. It takes but a twitch, the golems eager to serve their Queen. For her, the heart of a star, the movement of the earth is nothing surprising, she could feel the hot center of the earth eager to move, eager to spread. It wasn’t malicious, but it wanted to grow, it wanted to be more than magma. 

The heart of a star didn’t have to stop the flow of lava, all she had to do was tell it where not to go. It took the work of moments.

The Queen mother hugged her daughter, bringing her consciousness to the fore. She wanted her daughter by her side, but she wanted daughters of her daughter, so she would have to be content that she had had this time. 

Kida felt a hug, then she realized she felt, she hadn’t felt anything in a while. She felt another hug that was greater than any other hug she had ever felt. It was warm, and safe, and there was something hard in her palm. It was Milo, her darling stranger. He gave the perfect hug. 

“Milo?” she asked, wanting to be sure this was real, even though she couldn’t really remember why this wouldn’t be real. The hard object in her palm was the bracelet her mother had taken from her when she was young. She closed her eyes against the pain. 

They hugged, “My stranger,” neither was sure who said it, but they both felt it, the other was theirs, and heaven help any who stood in their way.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review, I love hearing about what people thought and how they interacted with what I wrote!


End file.
